oh no! i'm glad you missed it. it missed you. can't imagine (besides the danger aspect) how unreal it would have felt to have run across it. give me a nice fluffy skunk any day.

btw, i had fun looking at maps. didn't know where Pike county was.. but I've spent a lot of time not far from there. i'm from Columbus, my mom grew up in Laurelville, I had friends that had a farm of sorts between Jackson & Oak Hill, & of course there's Hocking Hills. Sure is a pretty area.

mule - I'm a Portsmouth native, now living in Columbus. I admit that I wasn't surprised that this happened in my old stompin' grounds... but was glad to hear that no lions or humans were harmed in the whole adventure.

A nice side story.....one of my relatives was telling at a recent family dinner how this same family had a pet bear about 10 years ago. They had the bear de-clawed, put a muzzle over its mouth and had friends over to take turns wrestling it just for entertainment. My relative said it was hilarious to watch but he was always afraid to give it a whirl.

This summer we took the kids to Arlington, Tx for a Rangers'/Cub's game (we're die hard Cubs fans). As I was getting ready to walk out the hotel door for my run, I hear enough of a news story to turn around and see what was up - there was an armed criminal in the neighborhood 1/2 mile from where we were, and the police were chasing him through backyards and such and I could hear the helicopter outside! I held off on the run until he was caught!!